Comprehensive immigration reform is heading back to center stage on Capitol Hill and — dare we say it? — concerted action in 2014. Leaders on both sides of the aisle support it and are keenly aware that the election-swaying Hispanic vote is on the line.

Given the stakes, proponents must exercise caution when it comes to pushing hot-button provisions that risk scuttling approval. One such issue is the pathway to citizenship. The Obama administration and leading Democrats insist on its inclusion, and a bipartisan Senate majority already approved it as one provision in a comprehensive reform bill passed this summer.

Conservatives in the House say the pathway provision goes too far and warn that it could lead to the reform package’s defeat. So why not find a workable middle-ground solution?

A Pew Research Center poll released this month indicated that the biggest concern on the minds of Hispanics and Asian-Americans is the threat of deportation, not citizenship. Respondents still overwhelmingly favor the opportunity of citizenship, but they don’t regard it as a make-or-break issue in the comprehensive reform debate.

Past immigrant behavior indicates that most beneficiaries of comprehensive reform wouldn’t take advantage of citizenship if it were offered. A separate Pew report published earlier this year found that, among all Hispanic immigrants in the country legally, just 44 percent have opted for citizenship. The remainder chose legal permanent residency. Just 36 percent of Mexican immigrants, by far the largest immigrant community, have chosen citizenship.

“For many undocumented people, citizenship is not a priority,” Oscar A. Chacon, executive director of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, told The New York Times. “What they really care about is a solution that allows them to overcome their greatest vulnerabilities.”

Congress and President Barack Obama should take note, because if these are the main groups that America’s political leaders are trying to help, a politically fraught pathway to citizenship might not be the best answer.

From the beginning of the reform movement in 2006-07, this newspaper has carefully broached the pathway topic, mindful of its political sensitivity. Our long-standing preference has been for a pathway to regularized status — permanent legal residency that allows immigrants to come and go without the constant fear of capture and being blocked from re-entry. The Texas Association of Business and other employer groups support such language as well.

Employers need access to reliable sources of low-cost labor, particularly for seasonal jobs that American workers tend to shun. The deportation threat harms workplace productivity, adds stress to family life, disrupts schools and puts landlords in a bind. A pathway to citizenship might be a nice long-term goal, but its inclusion is not worth the risk of another costly defeat for comprehensive immigration reform.

From the Pew poll

Most adult Hispanics and Asian-Americans in the U.S. are immigrants. A Pew Research Center poll released in December asked their views on comprehensive immigration reform. The poll asked:

Which is more important: legal residency/deportation relief or a pathway to citizenship?